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Friday, September 7, 2012

Lately...

First let me say that we love our house, we love our church, and we love Wisconsin.

People have been so kind to us. We will be walking down the street and someone will stop us and say, "I haven't met you yet!" The other day, actually, we went to this little diner called Christina's just to have a simple cup of coffee, and afterwards someone stopped us and said, "Welcome to Ripon! Did you know there are other coffee shops in town?"

And then for the house-- having space is AMAZING. I can't even say that enough. I used to have this recurring dream that I would open a door and discover a new room in our apartment that I didn't know about. Now, it's like that's come true. There are TWO rooms that we're not even really using right now (a spare bedroom and an office) that I forget about all the time. And then I'm like, "hmm where can I put this random object that I don't want in the middle of my living room? Ah hah! In the office!" It's great.

But really, on the downside, we just don't have enough furniture to fill the rooms. I'd love to use the office for sewing and to keep the computer in, but we need more furniture and that's expensive. Also, we hope to have the spare room up and running by October when my mom and Grandma do the Great Gramma Tour to visit Allen and Charis, us, and my Uncle Bob and Aunt Vickie. This morning we went to a bunch of antique stores looking for some furniture and we found six chairs for our dining room table (we'll probably only use 4 in there and then put the other two somewhere else). They need some work, but they work just fine for now!

There are two with arms and four without.

We also found this little model church at the antique store. I kind of want Evelyn to have a Dollchurch instead of a Dollhouse. But really...I'm kidding. I'm a good mom.

The real church is...overwhelming to say the least, but I really do feel like I'm handling it well. Nobody expects me to figure everything out right away, and I just have to remind myself that over and over again (like by writing it in my blog). My main goals for the first year or so is to just listen to the congregation and to preach well. I'll be doing other things, like leading the Confirmation and beginning a Bible study with an afternoon session and an evening session, but I'm not going to overdo myself. The Bible study will be based on the scripture for the coming Sunday, so in a way it will be killing two birds with one stone-- studying something with a group that I would be studying by myself anyway.

I do have my office set up, but it's still a work in progress. I'll post photos sometime next week.

Not being home as often is weird for me. Sometimes I will get to the end of the evening and realize I haven't changed a diaper all day. That blows my mind. And Evelyn is having a bit of a hard time with me being gone, but mostly I think she just doesn't like change. I think she's also mad because I decided that now that she's one, I'm not going out of my way to nurse her during the day. She doesn't like that idea, and the days that I'm home she still nurses 4 or 5 times. I just don't have the heart to tell her no. Maic is doing a wonderful job staying home with her. She's not a piece of cake anymore (she never was, but it's different now). She's doing toddler-y things, like pulling all of the wipes out of the package, throwing herself on the ground and crying when she doesn't get what she wants, and sitting on Nos's head.

Speaking of Nos, Evelyn thinks he is the cream of the crop. She also thinks that she is Nos's sole caregiver and therefore believes that he doesn't eat unless she feeds him. She has even-- I kid you not-- learned how to throw his toys for him. She throws them like 8 inches. Nos is the most poorly adjusted to Ripon of the four of us. He's not doing great. He barks while we are gone, and he had a really bad interaction with another dog. We are really trying to get him onto a schedule and give him a lot of exercise, but of course it's difficult when we're all trying to figure out what "schedule" even means.

Well, there's the novel on our lives. We're doing great. Sometime here in the future I'll be doing another blog overhaul, this time with a name change. I'm still up in the air, trying to decide between a simple change like "Being Pastor Mom" or "Life as Pastor Mom" or if I want to do something more clever (I have zero clever ideas, however, so probably I won't do that.) I'm up for suggestions all around-- from the title, to layout, to subject matter.

1 comment:

First off I'm glad you guys seem to be doing well! Second, as to the name change of the blog, if you're taking votes I go for Being Pastor Mom. The road until now may have seemed like the journey to BECOMING but really,(BEING) Pastor mom is who you've been the whole time.